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Project Noah Nature School
Dactylorhiza aristata
Orchid native to far east Russia, NE China, Korea and Japan and east to west Alaska and Aleutian Islands. A perennial growing from tubers, it has a flower stem 20-40cm high. Leaves are elongate green waxy and often spotted black with 3-4 per flower stem at the base. Dense flowering at the top of the stem. Colour ranges widely from pink through blue/purple.
These plants seen on Kamchatka Peninsular growing in coastal swamp margins but was also observed higher up in crowberry fields and herb gardens up to 1,000 m.
The colour variation and leaf spotting seemed most random from the plants I observed but the most numerous by far were the darker blue and purple varieties. Images show specimens of both.
Spotted on Jun 26, 2015
Submitted on Feb 17, 2016
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